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Fight Promoter Neil Forester Mystified People Are Concerned with Convicted Rapist on Card

At SCC 2.0 in Toronto, Todd ‘The Black Hulk’ Stoute fought, and lost to, Jeremy Osheim. Karim Zidan was at the event and wrote his thoughts on the experience. He also mentioned that Stoute was a convicted rapist, and that the crowd “cheered enthusiastically” as he walked to the cage, saying he found their warm welcome ‘disappointing.’

SCC president Neil Forester didn’t appreciate Zidan’s recounting of his subjective experience at the event, and took to Twitter to berate him. He accused Zidan of sneaking in and not being a credentialed journalist, which Zidan summarizes and responds to here.

Apparently, Forester can’t see why people might have some concerns about a convicted rapist, who uses the embodiment of uncontrollable rage as his nickname, fighting MMA. If you’d like to familiarize yourself with the details of the rape, assault, and disposal of an unconscious seventeen year old girl, they are below in the toggle box. There are also more general references throughout the rest of the piece.

Trigger warning: description of rape and assault within

Todd Stoute, 22, and a pal were both impaired by alcohol and cocaine at a downtown Toronto nightclub early on a Saturday night in June 2004 when they hatched a plan to steal two-for-the-price-of-one sex from a prostitute, according to an agreed statement of facts.

After 3 a.m., the Aurora man approached a 17-year-old girl standing beside the road in the Carlton and Jarvis Sts. area. They agreed on a price for intercourse and she climbed into his black sport utility vehicle, which had tinted windows.

His friend was hiding in the back, because the pair believed a sex worker would not agree to enter a vehicle containing two men.

According to their plan, they were going to surreptitiously steal the money Stoute paid her for sex, and then trick her by giving her back the same money if she agreed to have sex with the friend.

Stoute drove the vehicle to a nearby alley, where they had intercourse. When they had finished, the prostitute realized her purse was missing and started arguing with Stoute.

He hit her twice on the head with a bottle, causing her to bleed heavily. Then she was pulled to the back of the truck, and her head was covered with a blanket, according to the agreed facts.

Stoute then drove the vehicle while his chum raped the teen. They went to Scarborough where the two men left the young woman in a dumpster, taking her purse and cellphone so she could not contact anyone.

She later climbed from the dumpster and ran to a home and sought help. She was treated in hospital. DNA evidence linked Stoute to the attack. – source

Forester doesn’t seem to understand why people can’t just move on. I mean, that was ten years ago, for heaven’s sake! So typical of MMA journalists, who are usually trying to hold good guys like Forester down by trashing his promotion, to bring up a ten year old ‘negative.’

You know, I truly hope Todd Stoute is a changed man. If Stoute’s brazen disregard for other human beings, to the point that he clubs one over the head, rapes her, and throws her in a dumpster, has run its course and he’s now a fully emotionally-functioning person who recognizes the gravity and brutality of his actions, that’s great. I’ll be overjoyed if he and his dumbass friend never rape anyone ever again. And from looking at some of his tweets and the first part of this documentary, he doesn’t appear to deny his actions or shift responsibility to anyone else. But it’s not simply a ‘negative.’ It’s an extremely serious, violent crime wherein he literally treated a girl like garbage. It’s not surprising people take exception to that, even a decade later. Even if he’s a ‘changed man.’

However, this is all beyond Neil Forester. You’d think that as a promoter, he’d be aware that this is the type of thing to which people respond negatively. You’d think he’d expect it. Instead, in a brilliant display of smarm, he gaslights those who dare even mention it, chastising them for being negative and “hurting” his livelihood the local MMA scene.

@CallumLeslieMMA so why single out 1 out of 18 fighters. Focusing on the negative only. Where is the positive? — neil forester (@NeilForester) June 2, 2014

Yeah, Callum, where is the positive? What level of asshole must you be at to focus on negatives like this? Can’t you see that Forester is just trying to help and further MMA in Ontario?

I’d call it masterful deflection, but there’s nothing masterful about it. It’s flimsy and transparent. If Forester believes his own tweets, then it’s unlikely he’ll ever comprehend what it takes to support and grow MMA in Ontario (or anywhere). It’s certainly not reacting to criticisms with ad hominem attacks, subtweeting to your thousands of followers middle-school style, and failing to see the publicity nightmare that follows the negative correlation of a convicted rapist participating in a sport already facing opposition for its ‘brutality‘.

Or so thinks a fellow ‘hack self-proclaimed journalist.’ And the UFC, who fired Will Chope when his history of domestic violence came to light. But what do we know?